Anderson's Trygve Yamamura trilogy, contemporary detective fiction;
Anderson's "Dead Phone," a Yamamura short story with an element of fantasy;
John Grisham's The Broker (2005), a contemporary thriller dealing with advanced comsats, thus occupying a mainstream-sf borderline;
Grisham's The Last Juror (2004), set in the 1970s, thus very far from that borderline!;
most of Anderson's output, sf.
Anderson's Starfarers is conceptually condensed and intense. Consequently, while still recuperating from a cold, I enjoy alternating between it and the more accessible world of The Last Juror.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have read some of John Grisham's lawyer novels, such as THE STREET LAWYER. And a lot of John Wright's GOLDEN AGE trilogy deals with speculations on law in the far future. And of course S.M. Stirling began as a lawyer in Canada before certain unhappy incidents made him decide to change careers.
Maybe futuristic speculations about what the law might become in times to come would be some thing SF writers could look into?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Cases brought against SSL?
Prosecution of Flandry for alleged war crimes?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Ed Garvey, Old Nick's enemy in SATAN'S WORLD and MIRKHEIM, would love to file lawsuits against van Rijn and Solar Spice & Liquors! Even if they were trumped up cases motivated by malice.
I don't think Flandry could ever be plausibly accused of war crimes. He could be a hard man when it was necessary, but not guilty of war crimes. We actually know a bit about interstellar law on matters like this, from Commander Abrams' remarks about the Covenant of Alfzar in ENSIGN FLANDRY. In Chapter 14 we read: "By the Covenant of Alfzar, Merseia confirmed her acceptance of the rules of war and diplomacy which evolved on Terra. They evolved, and you took them over, for the excellent reason that they work. Now if you wish to declare us personae non gratae and deport us, his Majesty's government will have no grounds for complaint. But taking any other action against any one of us, no matter what the source of our accreditation, is grounds for breaking off relations, if not for war."
My view is that it's plain these ancient Terran rules of war and diplomacy which the Covenant codified were the Geneva and Hague Conventions of war and the Vienna Convention, covering international rules of diplomacy. With some modifications due to them now being applied on an interstellar scale. And I don't believe Flandry violated the Covenant.
Ad astra! Sean
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